Untethered
by Jadeblueafterglow17
Summary: When Pandora cut his tether to the natural world, she ended two lives. It's up to Abbie to save them both. Spoilers for Season 3, episode 9
1. Chapter 1- Broken

Untethered by Jadeblueaferglow17

Spoilers for the Episode Incident at Stone Manor S3x E 9

Disclaimers: I don't own Sleepy Hollow Fox does, if I did, poor Tom Mison would be relegated to yoga pants and be upside down during 90% of the show.

Category: A/HC: Because I needed a little more angst.

Chapter 1 - Broken

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The unyielding sun cast a hollow glow on the place she felt would become her eventual tomb. She had been trapped here in this vast waste land for more than 10 months, 17 days, 6 hours, 3 minutes...but who was counting anymore anyway. The only thing left to break the relentless monotony of the day to day loneliness were her hourly jaunts out of the four walls of her tomb to travel as far as her body would allow her before she needed to return and take metal to fire, and then metal to stone to map her new world on the walls on what had now become her prison. Her attempt to save her sister, to save her fellow witness from certain death, had forced her into this maddening other dimension, where time seemed to march on endlessly.

She'd survived purgatory and the demon Moloch.

She had saved Crane from certain death and kept Katrina from altering the past in the 18th century.

How could she save herself if she wasn't even sure if she was alive or dead?

Did she even exist anymore?

There was no food, no potable water, nothing to allow her weary mind to rest, just the endless yearning to return to the ones she loved, without the means to even reach them.

All she could was try to hold on to the last fragments of her memories of them.

Their laughs...their smiles...Crane's voice. His voice. It was her only tether to the life she once knew.

"Leftenant..."

"Crane?" silence greeted her once again...her new and ever present companion..."I'm losing my mind..." she thought aloud.

"Leftenant? Queen to Knight 4"

"Crane is it really you?!"

"I am close, but I need your help to make the rest of the journey, Leftenant."

"Crane please..." an urgent need for sanity bore of her plea.

"Cling to our bond Leftenant...our partnership. Hold onto it in your mind."

"Please be real...please be real...oh God Crane...I need you to be real." she whispered aloud to herself. As if God himself answered her prayers, Crane's astral form materialized before her. She could not contain her joy, she raced to his lanky frame only to have him vaporize to dust before her eyes. She felt anger swell within her at the injustice of it all.

Abbie felt a plethora of curses welling deep within her ready to make an escape when suddenly his voice echoed...

"I'm afraid only my spirit is here. Leftenant, Ms. Jenny and Master Corbin devised this method as a portal for me to reach you in ...whatever this place is you've been these past weeks...

"Weeks? Crane I've been here nearly a year..."

"Leftenant, that's not possible..."

"Crane after my phone died, I made a sand timer to measure time because the sun never sets here...I never grow tired, or hungry, cold or hot...I just age Crane. My nails grow, my hair grows, time moves, but I do not."

Crane stared at the hieroglyphs on the walls of the tomb.

"This writing...is Sumerian. There must be some ancient magic here...some strange evil at work."

"Evil...yes...maddening, hellish even."

Before they could even consider the intricate details of the ancient text on the wall an twisted wind blew through the catacombs, causing gooseflesh to rise on the nape of their necks. Suddenly a terrifying voice rand out from the depths of the cavern.

"And you shall stay here and rot my dear Napalutus'."

"Pandora...?

"Yes witness...I am here, like your fellow mortal in our astral form, except I didn't have to use a crudely built spirit cabinet to project my astral form, I have the powers of a god at my beck-and-call."

"An ugly one at that."

"I'll have you know that cabinet was built in two hours to precisely..."

"Crane!" Abbie voice warned.

He nodded hastily...and thought " _Right probably not the time to quibble over the craftsmanship of his dual world transport system._

"Give me the **eye** Witness and I will use its power to help send you back home.

"Go to hell..."

"Hell? Oh you have no idea Witness...You are so smart...too smart for your own good."

"There's nothing you can do to me here." she laughed to herself.

"No, witness I can't harm you, but I can hurt him." Pandora balked as she appeared to flicker Betsy Ross' blade becoming whole in her hands. She closed her eyes briefly as her form began to waver in and out. Her physical form appeared in the archives as she came upon the cabinet holding the bodily form of Ichabod Crane,

"I owe you at least this much Witness for toying with my box, she whispered to his unresponsive face as the gentle breath of her abated curses reached his darkened tresses and moved them slightly.

She made a slashing mark across his abdomen just as the Horseman of Death had made some 200 years ago as Crane's body cringed in agony. His astral projection fell to its knees in the Catacombs beside Abbie in the cave as Pandora reappeared.

Crane grabbed a hold of his abdomen heaving desperately as Abbie kneeled before him reaching out to touch but deciding that in his current state he was not there with her in body.

"An eye for eye I suppose you would say mortals. You return the eye to me, and I give you the chance to save your fellow witness."

"What did you do to him?"

"Your witness tethered his body in your Earthly world while he projected his spirit to try to find your miserable soul here in the Catacombs. I merely set a deadline.

"Meaning?"

"I cut his earthly form, and his tether. If you bring me the eye, I will free you from this place and you may save him. If not he'll die there and his soul will float free for all eternity, a terrified soul forever in its own darkness, despair..loneliness the true meaning of hell. A lost and silent soul."

"No!"

"Unless you give me what I want he will die in that cabinet, and you will rot here."

Abby and Crane shared horrified looks. Within each of those looks each shared thousands of memories as Crane's figure began to become more wavered, his spirit flickered in and out.

Pandora held up her bloodied right hand as if to drive home her meaning.

"There is still a chance to save your fellow Witness. I can show you how to use the eye in time to save him before he dies and is lost forever."

Abbie stood and grasped hold of the eye, its crystal now a translucent clear.

"It is not your path to die in these endless battles you plague us with. How long can you stand the solitude?"

"There were times I thought I'd go mad from the loneliness. But seeing Crane again...knowing what you've done to him, I know what I have to do."

Pandora stood with her hands out waiting...wanting.

"I have to do this for both of us..." Abbie said aloud to Pandora. Pandora smiled a gleeful grin as she could almost taste the feast she would enjoy with her god as she returned the eye of providence to her lover and they ravaged the world they hope to remake. Abbie placed the eye in the center of the thicket of brush and took a large rock and smashed the small stone to bits.

The faint glimmer of Ichabod's aura smiled at Abbie as she drew Pandora's ire.

"You fool, what have you done?"

"In chess we call that move a sacrifice. We mortals do that when it's for the greater good." Abbie nearly screamed, with unshed tears in her eyes.

"Well. You enjoy your sacrifice mortal, as you suffer here in madness, for all eternity!" she screamed as she too cut her tether and escaped from the Catacombs.

Suddenly Crane's image completely dissappeared.

She was alone again.

Abbie heard Pandora's words echo through her hollow prison.

"You made your move live with it!"

"Crane?" she cried out in desperation. When she was met with silence, she fell to her knees in front of the moss covered stump she'd gathered and flung the rock pieces from her self-made chess board.

"Damn you Crane...don't you leave me!" she rocked back and forth on her knees staring into the portal, the entrance and exit into her nightmare when she felt it; the tiniest whisper on her soul.

"Leftenant...?"

"Crane?" a tear swiped hastily from her cheek. "Crane are you still there?"

"I'm here Leftenant..."

"Oh thank God..."

"It's so dark...cold." his voice held a tremble she had never heard before.

"Crane hang on...we are gonna find a way out of here."

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#teamIchabbie want more? tell me all about it.


	2. Chapter 2 - Disconnected

Untethered - A fill in for Incident at Stone Manor -One Shot

Disclaimers: part 1

Author's Note: I didn't even realize I hadn't posted the whole first chapter. Whoops my bad. See if you had said something I would have known, that I too didn't even add the angsty part!

Chapter 2: Disconnected

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"How does that feel? To know that his life is slipping through your fingers. To know that you're alone now. Alone in this fight of yours. Alone in this world." Pandora's voice mocked her.

Haunted her.

The vision of Crane's blood pooling beneath her as she knelt beside him, his trembling frame clinging to life after being stabbed by The Ripper.

"Shut up! Leave me alone!" she covered her ears, falling to her knees beginning to rock as if in a trance.

"One long endless day hammering away at you til you go mad." the voice taunted.

"Leave **me** alone!"

"...Leftenant..." a whispered voice echoed, timidly, tremoring with fear.

"Crane...you've got to go back. You have to save yourself. If you don't you'll die."

" _Leftenant_?"

" Please." she whispered. "I can't have your death on my soul. Please Crane."

" _I can't...there's nothing but darkness, and your voice...please Leftenant...keep talking_."

"Uhmmm...Ok. Keep talking Mills." She paced back and forth trying desperately to picture Crane back in the empty catacombs as he had been mere minutes ago. She reached for the rusted, dusty disgarded cutlass sword she'd been using to mark the walls of her prison.

"You said this sword belonged to Betsy Ross? Crane, if she left her weapon here, maybe she was once held prisoner here. There must be a way out of here. You said that you and Jenny used totems to find me. Please...use me to get out of here...follow me Crane."

"'Crane?" she yelled out into the vast void. A forever silence seemed to reply.

" _Abbie...?"_

"Crane, hold on." she sighed, terrified by the fear in his voice, wondering how he must be feeling consumed by the darkness.

Archives It had been more than eight hours since they abandoned Crane in the spirit cabinet. As they made their way through the tunnels under Sleepy Hollow, the telltale silence was broken by the sound of arguing. Footfalls crunched on weathered rocks, as the sound of vermin scurrying in the distance brought no alarm to the larger human trespassers in the bowels of the city.

"You have to admit that was a great idea for Agent Foster to use the concrete to trap the demon gargoyle."

"You have to admit it was **MY** good idea to use the holy water to trap him there in the first place."

"Well...if we are going for credit here . . ." Joe smiled innocently taking in the beauty of one Jennifer Mills. A sight to behold on any ordinary day, but with a tinge of jealousy over being bested by Agent Foster, even more attractive as he held his sharp wit in check.

"Watch it buddy...you got lucky." she smiled, her right eyebrow arching in a teasing glare.

Jenny and Joe heard the creak and whine of the archive door as they crawled through the alternate entrance and jogged to the still silent spirit cabinet Crane had built. They slid back the curtains to find Crane still inside, his candle snuffed, his head laying back against the cabinet. Taking a glimpse behind the curtain, Joe was startled to see the change in his features, his once calm face was now dotted with perspiration. He put two fingers to his radial artery and found a very weak pulse, and surprised eyes raised to find Jenny's face.

"Something is wrong. His pulse is very weak, and his skin is ice cold."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Abbie emerged from the river where that ran near the hole where Crane was once buried. As she stumbled from its depths soaked with water, the sounds of birds chirping, and a change in color from the almost blinding white sky told her she'd made it back. If she wasn't back in Sleepy Hollow she was back somewhere in her time...as the world once again seemed right as rain.

"He must be still searching for Abbie..." Jenny whispered staring at the closed cabinet.

"The candle is out."

"What? No? That makes zero sense, the candle is supposed to be a tether, if it goes out it should have snapped him back."

"His connection was cut...she snuffed out his candle before he could return." a voice from beyond the grave seemed to say as Jenny turned to see the tired face of her sister Abbie standing in the Archive entrance, looking worse for wear. Her warrior clothes were frayed and dusty, torn to bits, her hair longer, and wild but very much alive and present in the here and now.

"Thank God, Abbie!"

"Jenny it worked...your idea worked, Crane found me in that place Pandora called the catacombs, and he helped me get home."

"Wait...Pandora was there?"

"Yes, Crane and I were trying to find a way out...we found Betsy Ross's sword there...then she appeared and demanded the eye of Provenance.  
I wouldn't give it to her, I destroyed it so she tried to trap me there."

"But where is he?"

"When I destroyed the eye, she cut his tether."

"She cut it? So he's lost out there alone?" Joe remarked trying desperatedly to awaken the non-responsive Ichabod Crane.

"No, not alone, not ever. I could hear him."

"His candle is out. The link to his body is gone."

"No, no you don't Crane, you are not going to find me only to be lost. she whispered softly grasping his hand and squeezing. When she felt no response from him, she was more than a little surprised when the weight of his full frame began to fall forward. She and Joe lowered him gently to the floor, as she held his head in her lap. Jenny ran smooth fingers along his temple brushing the short cropped hairs from his forehead but the 1st Witness did not stir.

"Why isn't he coming out of it?"

Tears like diamond pools began to form in Abbie's eyes as they threatened to spill over.

"Damn it Crane don't do this to me." she begged to the form now lying on the floor below her. One hand felt the weak pulse at his carotid artery beneath her fingertips, as the other lay abreast his heart feeling the subtle rise and fall of his chest. He looked so calm in his restful state.

A tear drop finally fell from Abbie's eyes and landed on Crane's still face.

"He was supposed to follow me back, and we would make it out of there together." She held on to his hands squeezing tightly, hoping against hope to find him squeezing back. She pulled open his jacket searching, hoping that Pandora had been lying, had played a trick on her, but there, beneath his thick coat and 18th century shirt she found a wound, a deep wound that stretched across his abdomen down his right hip.

"Oh no... no no."

"He's hurt."

"We have to get help... the last thing he said before we got seperated was that he was cold, it was dark." Abbie ripped down the fabric from the spirit cabinet and held fast to the wound on his side. His skin was so cold. How long had he been like this in the real world while she fought her way back from the catacombs? Minutes, Hours? She was concerned about how much time had passed.

"We can't move him...if we leave this place we may lose him forever. His body has to stay here, in this place."

"We have to get him help or he's gonna bleed to death and there will BE no saving him.

"What do we do?" Jenny continued running her fingers through his hair.

"I have to ...I have to go back for him."

"No! No Abbie you can't you can t do it."

"She's right Abbie...Crane wouldn't want that for you, these past weeks without you. He'd never forgive himself if you "

"I can't just leave him there! He would never leave me in such a place. Besides I know how to leave now, I know the way out."

"Abbie you don't know that. It may have been a one-time thing, it may have been because you were real and not a spirit."

"We found a way to you...trust us to find a way to bring him back."

"For now we have to stop him from bleeding and get some help."

"I'm on it." Joe said leaping to his feet and holstering his cell to his ear. He dialed the digits to contact his partner EMT hoping this would be another of those "no questions asked" moments. Crane had no time for such explanations.

Abbie looked down in her lap at his face and placed a trembling left thumb over his soft lips.

"He'll die without his spirit, his soul. He's already so weak without it so long."

"I'll do whatever is necessary to keep his body alive Abbie, we won't give up without a fight." Her right hand found his way onto a cold cheek as eyes too tired to stay open any longer slid closed.

"You were supposed to follow me Crane." she whispered aloud. Jenny and Joe exchanged anxious glances as they now pondered how to rescue their second lost witness in as many weeks from the brink of death. Joe nodded a comforting glance to Jenny before exiting the archives.

"Is there away to reverse the spell that you cast to to set free his spirit, to reignite the frame?" Abbie began to unbutton his shirt using her small hand to apply pressure to the wound.

"I don't know, If what you say is true, he might not be able to find his way. Crane must be so afraid, I can't imagine being trapped alone in the dark."

"You have no idea how terrifying." Abbie remarked sitting herself up to cradle him in her lap more easily. "He was just starting to get over the nightmares...we both were..."

Abbie was at a loss. Would Pandora's words ring true? Would Crane leave her alone?

She couldn't lose this man.

Not now. She loved him.

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#teamIchabbie


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